ISLAMABAD: Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian said on Monday there was “no doubt” militants harboring along a shared border with Pakistan were supported by “third countries,” as both neighbors agreed to form a foreign ministerial-level advisory body to review bilateral cooperation and challenges.
Foreign ministers of the two countries held talks in the Pakistani capital a little less than two weeks after they exchanged tit-for-tat airstrikes aimed at what each called militant targets inside the other’s territory. The strikes, the highest-profile cross-border intrusions in recent years, raised alarm about wider instability in the Middle East region since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted on Oct. 7. Iran said the strikes in a border village on its territory killed nine people, including four children. Pakistan said the Iranian attack had killed two children.
Both countries quickly moved to de-escalate tensions and announced that their ambassadors, previously recalled, would return to their respective posts on Jan. 26 and the Iranian FM would visit Islamabad on Jan. 29.
On Saturday, unidentified gunmen killed nine Pakistani workers in a restive southeastern border area of Iran, amid the efforts by the two countries to mend ties.
“There is no doubt that terrorists located in the common border regions and areas of Iran and Pakistan are led and supported by third countries,” Abdollahian said as he addressed a joint media briefing with his Pakistani counterpart Jalil Abbas Jilani.
Pakistan has long accused rivals and neighboring Afghanistan and India of stoking unrest in its southwestern Balochistan province that borders Iran. Both deny the charge.
Through “joint cooperation,” the Iranian FM said Tehran and Islamabad would work together to ensure militants and their backers did not endanger and threaten the security of the two nations.
“We consider Pakistan’s security as a brotherly friendly and neighborly country as the security of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the security of the whole region,” Abdollahian added.
“We have agreed to establish a high-ranking advisory committee at the level of the ministers of foreign affairs of the two countries, alternatively to meet in Islamabad and Pakistan.”
The committee would “oversee the progress that is being made in various areas of cooperation.”
“We will try to implement our already signed security agreements which have already been done between the Iranian military and Pakistani security institutions,” Abdollahian added.
Jilani said the two countries had resolved to expand cooperation, especially in the political and security domains.
“The threat of terrorism poses a common challenge to both our countries and Pakistan and Iran have agreed to adopt collective and collaborative approaches to confront the threat of terrorism,” he said.
The Pakistani FM said both sides had agreed to appoint focal persons in their respective border districts of Turbat in Pakistan and Zahedan in Iran and would also prioritize economic uplift and development and improve the overall security of border egions.
“We have also agreed to fast-track operationalization of the five remaining border markets between the two countries,” he added.
The top leaders of Pakistan and Iran in May last year inaugurated the first border market amid a push to warm relations between the two countries.
Located in the remote village of Pishin in Balochistan province, the marketplace was the first of six to be constructed along the Pakistan-Iran border under a 2012 agreement signed by the two sides.
